I think my wife came to say hi to me when I was sleeping a week or so ago and I started singing "you are my sunshine" in a rather annoying voice (not sure where I first heard the song, but think it was maybe school chorus class). She started laughing and wanted to know where I got that annoying voice from (I wasn't sure but maybe it was my way of being annoying in chorus).

Few thoughts are original...so if I thought it, I figured someone else did too. So I went to YouTube and searched for "you are my sunshine." A couple normal versions and then there at #6 was something that looked like it could be annoying. Perfect!

After seeing the flower I had to buy it, and that took me back through Google and eventually to eBay, where it cost $20 after shipping. My wife loved the flower and was totally surprised by it.

What if YouTube not only listed related media, but also pulled related products/services/offers from Google Base (or other structured sources) and could charge merchants on a CPC basis or a percentage of the transaction?

Most of the people on YouTube are looking to be entertained and waste time, but if media wants to be free on YouTube then maybe they should try to sell media in other formats and sell physical stuff. YouTube has huge distribution...so even if only 1 in 100 or 1 in 1,000 have interest in commercial offers they should be able to make the market fairly efficient pretty quick.

Comments

I suspect you gonna receive more comments on the dancing flower than on YT bussiness model. In fact, I have bought my daughter one of these flowers ( exactly like the one in the left geekalerts.com/dancing-flower-for-ipod/ ) and she absolutely loves it. I too :-) ).

I remember the band (singer?) that went viral and after thousands of views on Yt all they had sold was 8 copies. Perhaps it was a question of letting people know that they could buy and where - an embedded link in the screen is way more efficient.

IDK if you saw my post on Graywolf's blog, Aaron, but I'd say that a more likely model for success will be enabling folks to promote themselves to the community and buy top chart ratings. They've currently built an ad platform around that and I think we'll soon see success stories published of how folks used that.

I think that business model is harder to promote...because by the time a person is successful enough to have a top rating the last thing they want to do is loudly exclaim how the position was gained unnaturally / manipulated / influenced by advertising.

Most of us want to believe that we are far smarter beings than we actually are.

Pulling and categorizing Google Base into contextual feeds that supplement youtube and other media is of course a great idea.

I think its always good to match content tasetefully with related products or media to sell. Still, some categories are there for wasting time - this inactive audience group has less innate desire to buy or act. Others are more transactional by nature - like Shopping. Thus building out a shopping portal on youtube and trying your idea would be a great way to test viability.

About Youtube, I guess for Google it's just that get maximum exposure and traffic to their programs. Once they get that traffic, they will surely try and come up with a number of monetizing ideas. I don't think Google considers Vimeo or Metacafe or Hulu to be top competitors of Youtube. They are probably after CNN, BBC, HBO, etc.

About IraqiDinars, its interesting that site actually tells you how to distinguish fake dinars from real ones, and also has info on some legal aspects. How 'cool' of them to steal a design for that kind of a site!